While I was looking up toward the mountain top, and along down the rocky
wall, I saw a smooth place about fifty feet above where the great rocks
had broken out, and there, painted in large black letters, were the
words "ASHLEY, 1824." This was the first real evidence we had of the
presence of a white man in this wild place, and from this record it
seems that twenty-five years before some venturesome man had here
inscribed his name. I have since heard there were some persons in St.
Louis of this name, and of some circumstances which may link them with
this early traveler.
When we came to look around we found that another big rock blocked the
channel 300 yards below, and the water rushed around it with a terrible
swirl. So we unloaded the boat again and made the attempt to get around
it as we did the other rocks. We tried to get across the river but
failed. We now, all but one, got on the great rock with our poles, and
the one man was to ease the boat down with the rope as far as he could,
then let go and we would stop it with our poles and push it out into the
stream and let it go over, but the current was so strong that when the
boat struck the rock we could not stop it, and the gunwale next to us
rose, and the other went down, so that in a second the boat stood
edgewise in the water and the bottom tight against the big rock, and the
strong current pinned it there so tight that we could no more move it
than we could move the rock itself.
This seemed a very sudden ending to our voyage and there were some very
rapid thoughts as to whether we would not safer among the Mormons than
out in this wild country, afoot and alone.
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